However, I am neurotic about picking out The Perfect Christmas Tree. Last year, I had to promise my ex I would only drag him to ONE tree lot because the year before, tree-picking involved three hours and approximately 5 tree lots (I kept my word too!! Only 1 lot! Although, to be honest, the tree was pretty, but totally sub-par on the vibe-scale of tree-worthiness).

It’s not just the number of lots, either! Nooooo. I make you hold the tree up. Then I make you rotate it. Then I have to sprint around the tree and look at it from every. possible. angle. Then I have to compare it to the last tree you held up and rotated, meaning you have to hold it up and rotate it again. I even *carefully* inspect the tree to make sure that the trunk is straight (otherwise, when I get home, I’ll spend hours stupidly trying to get a crooked tree to stand up straight).

*MY* tree has to be tall and preferably thin with a nice triangular tree-shape. It also has to have nice, sturdy branches and short needles (no long, softish, spiky needles for me). It can’t be overly GREEN either. I prefer the bluish-green of Frasiers. OH! And anything with needles that are prickly to startwith is a HELL NO! (tried that last year with the sub-par tree. PAIN aside, well, just remind me to show you what my carpet looked like right before I threw out that tree )

Yeah. Neurotic, right? At least I admit it.

Anyway, Wednesday was the BIG DAY. It was a bright, sunny, sparkly winter day — *perfect* for tree-picking!!! (The only thing less-than-perfect about it was that I had no one to come with me This year, I did the tree hunt SOLO. BAH!)

Usually, I borrow a radio station vehicle. In the past, it’s been the Xterra. The Xterra is a good intro to SUVs for someone who has never gone anywhere near one. It’s small, it’s cute; it’s a truck without BEING a truck. THIS year however, they gave me the CARGO VAN.

{{blink}} {{blink}}

I’m not going to front. I was scared SHITLESS of that van. To illustrate how scared shitless I was, this was the expression that took over my face the *entire* time I was driving it:

Scared. Shitless. Seriously.

I really thought I might die in that thing, AND I ONLY HAD TO DRIVE IT ONE BLOCK TO GET TO THE FIRST LOT!

The First Lot.

When I *did* reach the first lot (safe and sound, without maiming anyone or anything), I was filled with glee! Not only did this lot have scads of prettypretty trees, but THEY ACCEPTED VISA! I’m not sure, but it’s even possible that I may have been skipping amongst the trees, I was that excited.

So many pretty trees!*

So, I was skipping through the trees, all happy-like when I just *happened* to look down at the bottom of one of these glorious trees and notice a price tag. I won’t get into the specifics, but let’s jsut say that there were two numbers higher than 5 arranged in a HIGHLY displeasing combination. Suddenly, these trees got real ugly, real fast.

Here’s the problem though. In order to get to a SECOND lot, I had to drive The Van. This was truly a dilemma. I sucked it up though, because I knew there was another lot less than a couple miles away. I decided to be brave. Much making of the ‘face’ ensued.

In case you forgot.

The Second Lot had like, 5 trees. My great enthusiasm for photographically documenting my tree-picking experience diminished rapidly upon seeing this paltry lot. It had 5 trees, a cute dog, and a friendly old man who stalked me around the lot, touting the various qualities of each tree as I passed it.

You know what this meant, right? The Van. The Face.

I had two options. Face ‘The Face’ and hunt around for another lot (the option my neurotic, tree-picking little heart desired) or turn back and go to the Independently-Weathly-People-Only tree lot (which was back in the direction I came from and oh-so-close to home).

Did I mention the IWPO lot accepted VISA?

Needless to say, my neurosis got a beat-down and my tree-budget was blown all to hell. It was either that, or this:

Oh HELL no.

I *did* manage to find the perfect little tree, though Every time I see it, I can’t help but tell it how perfect and pretty it is! I guess, in a way, it’s sort of like childbirth (I imagine, anyway)…Even though I had to carry it through 4 heavy doors and up a flight of stairs ALL BY MYSELF and rig it up in its tree stand with NO HELP WHATSOEVER, somehow, I’ve forgotten the trauma enough that I would do it all over again

Wasn’t she worth it?

{{sigh}}

This weekend brings the Decorating of the Tree, as well as card-writing, holiday shopping, holiday cleaning, a possible movie and {{gasp}} A BLIND DATE. One of my lovely knitty friends is attempting to set me up and all I have to say to her is I know where to find you.

Wish me luck

ps – I’ve have been knitting, but it’s secret christmas stuff, so you can’t see it. Well, maaaaybe…

pps – GGSE™ says hi

* the funniest thing about this lot was the sign that said something to the effect of, “Buy real tree so we can breathe cleaner! We can’t plant new trees unless you buy the old ones.” Seriously. Not kidding.

This entry was posted
on Friday, December 10th, 2004 at 4:06 am and is filed under general, life.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.